An average movie

With such an interesting director and above all such an all-star cast, it was not surprising that this movie had a pretty good buzz before it came out. However, when it was released, it didn’t make much waves after all. And, indeed, I’m afraid the whole thing didn’t really work. I mean, this star-studded cast (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Casey Affleck, Anthony Mackie, Woody Harrelson, Aaron Paul, Kate Winslet, Gal Gadot, Norman Reedus, Teresa Palmer, Clifton Collins Jr.) might actually have been part of the problem. Basically, very often, you got to see too many characters at the same time and no one of them got enough room to be properly developed. The victim was also the plot. Indeed, because the whole thing was so over-crowded, everything was rushed and, even if you got here and there some bits of information about the characters involved, at the end, you never get the opportunity to get close with any of them. Still, the whole thing definitely had some potential. You could feel that all the actors believed in this story and they all gave some solid performances (Kate Winslet seemed rather miscast as a Russian mob boss though) and I also liked the fact that there was no really good or bad guy in this story. To conclude, even though it sounded quite promising, it turned out to be rather half-baked but I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in John Hillcoat’s work.